Sustenance and Stories – Heritage & Hearth

If you had walked through the streets of an Indian city in the 1950s or 1960s, one sight would have been impossible to miss: bidis and cigarettes. They were everywhere. Men smoked while waiting for buses, chatting in tea shops, strolling through markets and even sitting at their office desks. Trains, restaurants, cinema halls and waiting rooms were often enveloped in tobacco smoke. Few objected because smoking was regarded as an entirely normal part of everyday life. The silver screen reinforced the habit. Black-and-white Indian films frequently portrayed heroes with cigarettes or cigars, symbols of confidence, sophistication and masculinity. Villains, meanwhile, were more likely to be shown with a glass of whisky in hand, and for an entire generation the label of VAT 69 became almost synonymous with wealth, decadence and moral ambiguity.

Looking back today, that world seems almost unimaginable. Smoking has not disappeared, but it has retreated from public life. Ashtrays have vanished from most public buildings. Smoking is prohibited in offices, restaurants, airports and railway stations. Tobacco advertising has all but disappeared, and every on-screen smoking scene now carries a prominent health warning. Young people are far less likely to regard smoking as fashionable than their grandparents did. Few public health campaigns have transformed everyday behaviour as profoundly as the campaign against tobacco.

The turning point came in 1964, when the United States Surgeon General released a landmark report concluding that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer and several other serious diseases. The report did not persuade millions of smokers to quit overnight. Habits built over generations rarely disappear so quickly. What it did accomplish was something far more enduring: it changed public understanding. For the first time, governments, physicians and ordinary citizens had an authoritative scientific foundation for treating smoking not as a harmless pleasure but as a major public health hazard.

The decades that followed brought warning labels on cigarette packets, restrictions on advertising, higher taxes, smoke-free public places and sustained public education campaigns. Gradually, smoking lost its aura of glamour and sophistication. It came to be associated instead with addiction, disease and premature death.

The statistics illustrate the scale of this transformation. In the United States, about 42 percent of adults smoked in the mid-1960s. Today, that figure is around 9 percent. Worldwide, the proportion of adults using tobacco has also declined significantly despite rapid population growth. More than a billion people still use tobacco, but they represent a much smaller share of humanity than they did only a few decades ago. Few public health initiatives have produced such a remarkable change in social behaviour.

The success of the anti-smoking movement naturally raises another question. Could alcohol be approaching a similar moment?

The World Health Organization has increasingly emphasized that no level of alcohol consumption can be regarded as completely risk-free, particularly with respect to several forms of cancer. This represents an important shift in public health thinking. For many years, moderate drinking was widely portrayed as relatively harmless and, according to some studies, even beneficial for cardiovascular health. More recent research has challenged many of those assumptions, leading health authorities to adopt a more cautious message.

Will drinking therefore decline in the same way that smoking has?

Perhaps—but neither as quickly nor as dramatically.

The comparison between tobacco and alcohol is instructive because the two substances occupy very different places in human society. Cigarette smoking has no known health benefits and causes harm at virtually every level of consumption. Alcohol presents a more complex picture. Heavy drinking unquestionably damages health, but the risks associated with occasional or light drinking are generally small. That makes public messaging necessarily more nuanced than the uncompromising case against tobacco.

Alcohol is also far more deeply woven into human civilisation. Fermented beverages have accompanied religious ceremonies, festivals and family celebrations for thousands of years across many cultures. Tobacco, by contrast, spread across the world only after the voyages of Columbus in the late fifteenth century. It never acquired the same historical and cultural roots.

There is another important distinction. Cigarette smoke directly harms those who choose not to smoke through passive exposure. This gave governments a compelling justification for banning smoking in workplaces, restaurants, aircraft and other public places. Alcohol usually harms others indirectly—through impaired driving, domestic violence, accidents or family disruption—rather than simply through its presence. That difference makes restrictions on drinking both more difficult to justify and more difficult to enforce.

Economic considerations further complicate the picture. Alcohol supports agriculture, manufacturing, hospitality and tourism while generating substantial tax revenues for governments. Policymakers therefore face the delicate task of reducing harmful drinking without imposing unnecessary burdens on economic activity.

Yet social attitudes are already beginning to evolve. Surveys in several developed countries indicate that younger generations are consuming less alcohol than their parents. The rapid growth of alcohol-free beers, wines and spirits suggests that many people increasingly value the social experience without necessarily wanting the intoxicating effects or the associated health risks.

India, however, occupies a distinctive position. Unlike many Western societies, it has never developed a universal drinking culture. For centuries, large sections of Indian society abstained from alcohol because of religious beliefs, family traditions or social customs. Even today, declining an alcoholic drink at a wedding, dinner or business gathering is perfectly normal and seldom requires an explanation. What has changed over the past four or five decades is not the disappearance of abstinence but the growing visibility and social acceptance of alcohol, particularly in urban India. Rising incomes, economic liberalisation, globalisation, changing lifestyles and the expansion of the hospitality industry have all contributed to increased consumption. State governments, too, have become increasingly dependent on alcohol excise revenues, creating an inherent tension between public health and fiscal interests.

This history may ultimately work in India’s favour. Unlike the battle against smoking, which began after tobacco had become deeply embedded in everyday life, efforts to reduce harmful drinking can build upon an already strong tradition of abstinence. Millions of Indians have never consumed alcohol, not because of legal restrictions but because their families and communities have long regarded abstinence as a perfectly respectable choice. Public health campaigns are often most successful when they reinforce existing cultural values rather than attempting to replace them.

History teaches that scientific evidence alone rarely transforms society. It must be reinforced by education, thoughtful public policy, responsible media portrayal and gradual changes in social norms. Cinema once helped make cigarettes appear glamorous; today it carries anti-smoking warnings whenever tobacco appears on screen. Alcohol may well undergo a similar reassessment, but India’s journey is unlikely to mirror that of the West. The country has a rare opportunity to act before harmful drinking becomes deeply entrenched in its social fabric. If science, public awareness and public policy work together, India may succeed in avoiding with alcohol what the world spent half a century trying to achieve with tobacco. That would not merely be a public health victory; it would demonstrate that the wisest reforms are those that draw strength from a society’s own cultural traditions rather than working against them.

Our food now arrives with an invisible side of plastic: microplastics and nanoplastics that have slipped into the food chain through polluted water and soil, packaging, processing equipment, and even kitchenware. Bottled water, seafood, salt, tea bags, rice, and some fruits and vegetables are among the most implicated, with studies reporting hundreds of thousands of plastic fragments in a single liter of bottled water and microplastics in the vast majority of salt brands. While regulators like the US FDA and EFSA caution that evidence of harm at typical dietary exposures remains incomplete, other research shows these tiny particles can enter cells and may carry adsorbed contaminants, enough to justify serious attention to both exposure and mitigation.

Into this uneasy picture comes a striking finding from South Korea. Researchers at the World Institute of Kimchi isolated a lactic acid bacterium from kimchi—Leuconostoc mesenteroides CBA3656—that can latch onto nanoplastics in the intestine, bind them, and help carry them out of the body in feces before they spread further. In simulated gut conditions, this strain maintained strong adsorption of polystyrene nanoplastics, far outperforming a reference probiotic. In germ-free mice, those given the kimchi strain excreted more than twice as many nanoplastics in stool compared with controls, suggesting the bacterium “captures” particles via biosorption on its cell surface so they transit the gut instead of crossing the intestinal barrier.

This should resonate powerfully in India, where curd is a daily staple and a living repository of lactic acid bacteria. Home-made curd typically contains a varied microbial mix, including lactobacilli and Leuconostoc species, some of which have already been shown in Indian studies to possess probiotic-like traits such as acid and bile tolerance and antimicrobial activity. The crucial nuance is that the kimchi result is strain-specific. While the genus and even species may overlap with bacteria found in curd, not every Leuconostoc mesenteroides isolate will share the same surface chemistry that enabled unusually strong nanoplastic binding under gut-like conditions. Thus, curd can plausibly contribute to gut health and perhaps some degree of plastic sequestration, but it cannot yet be assumed to replicate the specific effect reported for the kimchi strain.

That uncertainty points directly to a natural leadership role for the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) in Karnal. NDRI’s mandate, infrastructure, and access to India’s dairy microbiome make it uniquely suited to answer the exact question that matters: which Indian curd-derived strains can bind and help clear micro- and nanoplastics, and under what realistic conditions? Through its National Collection of Dairy Cultures, NDRI already maintains hundreds of indigenous lactic acid bacteria, including Leuconostoc and Lactobacillus strains—precisely the diversity needed for systematic screening. The global literature already indicates that food-derived LAB can adsorb various nanoplastics (polystyrene, polyethylene, polypropylene, PVC) through electrostatic, hydrophobic, and hydrogen-bond interactions, and can reduce nanoplastic toxicity in animal models while supporting gut-barrier repair. What remains is to identify Indian strains that retain strong binding in simulated gastric and intestinal fluids, characterize the cell-wall components responsible, and then test leading candidates in dairy matrices and animal models.

A focused program could begin by assembling a panel of strains from NCDC and regional curd samples, then screening their biosorption capacity across different nanoplastic types and conditions. Mechanistic work would map which chemical groups on bacterial surfaces drive binding, informing why some strains perform better than others. Top performers could then be incorporated into standardized curd prototypes to assess viability, sensory impact, and stability—core strengths of NDRI’s dairy technology teams. Ultimately, small human pilot studies could measure fecal microplastic loads and gut-health biomarkers in volunteers consuming candidate curd versus control, laying the groundwork for larger trials and, if successful, evidence-backed functional dairy products.

The stakes go beyond one fermented food. Such research would generate India-specific evidence on a ubiquitous exposure and a culturally central food, catalyze innovation in the dairy sector, and position India as a leader in food-based mitigation of plastic-related risks. In a world where plastic has become a near-ubiquitous companion at every meal, the most practical antidotes may well come from our own culinary traditions—provided we invest the science to turn promising observations into reliable, scalable solutions.

Humanity’s story is often told as a tale of races—distinct categories of people separated by biology and destiny. But this narrative, deeply embedded in culture and history, contradicts what modern genetics and evolutionary science actually tell us. To understand human diversity, we must first understand a crucial distinction: the difference between species and races. This distinction is not merely academic; it shapes how we understand ourselves and each other.

Twenty-one hominin species once walked the Earth. From Homo habilis to Homo erectus, from Neanderthals to Denisovans, these were genuinely different species—biologically distinct populations that had diverged over millions of years. They could not interbreed successfully, or if they did, their offspring were sterile. These were not variations of the same human; they were fundamentally different kinds of humans. Over time, all but one disappeared. We survived. We are Homo sapiens, and we are alone among our kind.

Yet within our single species, we see remarkable diversity. Skin colors range from deep brown to pale white. Hair textures vary from straight to coily. Body shapes differ dramatically across populations. These visible differences led to creation of races. But here lies the paradox that modern science has exposed: these visible differences mask a profound genetic similarity that unites all of us.

Any two modern humans are 99.9% genetically identical. This is not a poetic exaggeration; it is a precise scientific measurement. When geneticists compare humans at the points where our DNA can vary, they find that we differ at only 0.1% of these sites. The genetic variation within a single racial group is many a time greater than the variation between racial groups. In other words, a random African and a random European may be more genetically similar to each other than two Africans are to each other. The concept of race, as a biological category, simply does not hold up under genetic scrutiny.

But here is where the story becomes more interesting. Some modern humans carry genes from other hominin species. Eurasian populations carry one to four percent Neanderthal DNA. East Asian and Oceanian populations carry three to five percent Denisovan DNA. How is this possible if these species could not interbreed successfully? The answer reveals the nuance that evolution teaches us: speciation is not a sharp line but a spectrum. Neanderthals and Homo sapiens diverged only half a million years ago—recent enough in evolutionary terms that they remained similar enough to produce fertile offspring. This interbreeding happened, and the genetic legacy persists in our bodies today.

The Neanderthal genes we carry are not random remnants; some are beneficial. They contribute to our immune systems, helping us fight infections in European and Asian environments. Denisovan genes helped Tibetan populations adapt to high altitude, and helped Oceanian populations navigate tropical islands. These are genuine adaptations, but they are not racial traits. They are population-level responses to specific environments, accumulated over thousands of years.

What actually creates human diversity, then, is not race but geography and time. Populations separated by oceans and mountains adapted to their local environments over tens of thousands of years. Darker skin evolved in populations near the equator, where intense ultraviolet radiation threatened survival. Lighter skin evolved in northern regions, where weak sunlight made vitamin D production difficult. Taller, leaner bodies evolved in hot climates for heat dissipation; shorter, stockier bodies in cold climates for heat retention. These are not markers of superiority or inferiority; they are engineering solutions to environmental challenges.

The visible differences we associate with race are superficial—literally skin-deep. They represent continuous variation, not discrete categories. There is no genetic boundary where “Black” ends and “Brown” begins, no biological line separating “Asian” from “European.” These categories were invented by humans for social and political purposes.

Understanding this distinction—between the genuine biological differences that separated hominin species and the superficial variations within our single human species—is essential for our time. It allows us to celebrate human diversity without creating false hierarchies. It explains why different populations have different food traditions, different adaptations to altitude and climate, different cultural practices—not because they are different kinds of humans, but because they are the same kind of human adapted to different places.

We are one species. We are 99.9% identical. And yet we are profoundly, beautifully diverse. This is not a contradiction. This is the truth of human biology, and it is far more remarkable than any myth of race.

Long before our species walked the Earth, our lineage was already writing its story in the language of food and flame. The narrative of human evolution is not a simple tale of meat-eaters triumphing over vegetarians, but rather a complex journey from the leafy canopies of ancient forests to the flickering glow of a campfire. The earliest members of our family tree, the australopithecines who lived over three million years ago, were predominantly vegetarian. Their diet consisted largely of fruits, leaves, roots, and tough plant materials, a menu that required powerful jaws and large guts to digest. Scientists have confirmed this through isotope analysis of their fossilized teeth, which reveals a diet almost indistinguishable from that of herbivores. However, a profound shift occurred around 2.8 million years ago with the emergence of the genus Homo. These early humans began to incorporate more meat and animal protein into their diets, a change that is considered a critical driver of our evolution. Species like Homo habilis were likely mostly vegetarian but would scavenge meat when possible, while Homo erectus became a true hunter, with animal foods potentially making up a significant portion of their daily calories. Later, the Neanderthals, our close cousins, evolved into largely carnivorous hunters who relied heavily on cooked meat from large game like mammoths and rhinos. Our own species, Homo sapiens, emerged as the ultimate opportunistic omnivore, capable of thriving on a wide range of foods, a flexibility that has allowed us to colonize every corner of the globe.

But diet alone does not tell the whole story. The real turning point, the spark that truly set us on the path to becoming human, was the taming of fire. Fire did far more than simply make meat palatable; it fundamentally rewired our biology and behavior. Cooking is essentially a form of external digestion. The heat from a flame denatures proteins and breaks down tough connective tissues, making meat far easier to chew and digest. This process unlocked significantly more calories and nutrients from the same amount of food, requiring less metabolic energy for digestion. This caloric surplus is widely believed to have been the primary catalyst that allowed our energy-hungry brains to grow larger and more complex. Fire also acted as the world’s first food safety system, killing dangerous parasites and bacteria that would have made raw meat lethal. Because cooking did so much of the digestive work, our bodies adapted over hundreds of thousands of years. Our teeth and jaws shrank as we no longer needed massive chewing muscles, our stomachs became less acidic, and our small intestines grew longer to absorb the sudden influx of easily accessible nutrients.

While the biological benefits of fire are clear, the archaeological evidence for its earliest use is a subject of fierce debate. The most undisputed proof of controlled campfires comes from a remarkable site in Israel called Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, dating back nearly 790,000 years. This site, located on the shore of an ancient lake, is exceptional because it provides a pristine, undisturbed snapshot of early human life. It is not a cave where the remains of countless generations were mixed together, but an open-air location where waterlogged conditions preserved single-event occupation floors. Archaeologists have found distinct hearths with burned wood, seeds, and charred animal bones arranged in clear spatial patterns, leaving no doubt that this was a home base where fire was deliberately tended and used for cooking. This find in Israel does not mean fire was only used there; rather, it reflects the uneven nature of archaeological research and preservation. The region has been subject to intensive study for over a century, while the prehistoric record in neighboring Jordan remains largely unexplored. Furthermore, the site sits on the Levantine Corridor, the primary land-bridge for early humans migrating out of Africa, making it a crucial stop along our ancestors’ journey.

The social impact of the campfire was as transformative as its biological effects. The hearth became a fixed point in the landscape, a home base that anchored nomadic groups and fostered a sense of community. For the first time, our ancestors had a circle of safety that kept nocturnal predators at bay, granting them four to five extra hours of activity after sunset. It is around these fires that anthropologists believe language and storytelling truly flourished, as complex grammar was needed to pass down knowledge and reinforce social bonds in the dark. The need to bring food back to a central fire to cook is also thought to have encouraged the evolution of pair-bonding and a division of labor, where males hunted large game while females gathered plants and tended the hearth. This cooperative interdependence, built over generations of sharing meals, reduced aggression and fostered the generosity that became a hallmark of human society. From the vegetarian australopithecines to the omnivorous modern humans, our story is one of adaptability. But it was the mastery of fire, the ability to gather around a glowing hearth, that truly forged our humanity, turning a simple act of cooking into the foundation of family, community, and culture. EK

Long before the first seeds were sown in the soil, before humans began cultivating plants and domesticating livestock, a remarkable relationship was forming between people and wolves. Somewhere between 27,000 and 40,000 years ago, during the harsh climate of the Last Glacial Maximum, wolves began lingering near human camps. They scavenged scraps from fires and middens, and those with calmer temperaments found themselves tolerated rather than chased away. Over generations, this tentative coexistence deepened. Humans discovered that wolves could serve as allies in the hunt, their keen senses and speed complementing human strategy. In return, wolves gained reliable food and protection. Slowly, the line blurred between wild predator and trusted partner, and the animals that adapted to human life became something new: dogs.

This transformation was not sudden but gradual, shaped by selective pressures and human choices. Wolves that were less aggressive and more cooperative survived better around people. Over time, their bodies changed too—shorter snouts, smaller frames, varied coat colors. Genetic studies show a clear divergence between wolves and dogs, marking dogs as a distinct species. By about 15,800 years ago, archaeological evidence reveals dog remains buried alongside humans in places like Pınarbaşı in Turkey. These burials suggest not only utility but emotional bonds, a recognition that dogs were more than tools—they were companions.

In early societies, dogs played multiple roles that were essential to human survival. As hunting partners, they increased success rates, helping track and chase prey across difficult terrain. Their presence meant more food security, a crucial advantage in unforgiving environments. As guardians, dogs protected settlements from predators and alerted humans to danger. Their loyalty and vigilance made them indispensable in the fragile stability of early communities. But dogs were not only practical allies. They were companions, woven into the social fabric of human life. The care shown in burials, the evidence of shared diets, and the diversity of dog forms by 11,000 years ago all point to a relationship that was emotional as well as functional.

Beyond survival, dogs entered the realm of culture and spirituality. Across civilizations, they became symbols of loyalty, guardianship, and guides between worlds. In Indo-European mythologies, dogs guarded the gates of the underworld, ensuring souls did not escape. They embodied liminality, existing between life and death, and were linked to celestial symbols like Sirius, the Dog Star, which guided seasonal cycles. In Aztec religion, dogs were buried with humans to guide souls through the afterlife. The god Xolotl, depicted with a dog’s head, was associated with death and rebirth, reinforcing the belief that dogs accompanied humans beyond the grave. In Chinese tradition, dogs were celebrated as one of the twelve zodiac animals, protectors against evil spirits, and guardians at temple entrances. Mythical figures like Panhu, the dragon-dog, highlighted their role as loyal defenders. In India, dogs were companions of deities such as Bhairava and Dattatreya, and they guarded the gates of the underworld alongside Yama, the god of death. Their presence in temple iconography underscored their spiritual significance.

These traditions reveal how deeply dogs were woven into human imagination. They were not merely animals but symbols of trust, guardianship, and the journey between worlds. Their roles in myth and ritual mirrored their roles in daily life: protectors, companions, and guides. The bond between humans and dogs was both practical and profound, shaping survival strategies, settlement patterns, and cultural traditions.

By the time humans began domesticating plants and animals during the Neolithic Revolution, around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, dogs were already firmly established as humanity’s first domesticated species. They spread alongside human migrations, accompanying people into new lands, including the Americas. Their presence made settlements safer, hunts more successful, and spiritual life richer. Even as societies evolved, dogs remained constant, adapting to new roles—herding, guarding, companionship—while retaining their symbolic power.

The story of dogs in early societies is not just about domestication; it is about partnership. Wolves that could be domesticated became dogs, and in doing so, they reshaped human history. They were hunters, guardians, companions, and spiritual guides. They stood at the edge of the firelight and then stepped into the circle, becoming part of the human family. That bond, forged in the ice and darkness of the Last Glacial Maximum, endures today, reminding us that our relationship with dogs is one of the oldest and most profound connections we have with another species. OT